The reports are carried out by an independent team of leading Arab scholars and researchers, and published by UNDP, which supports the project as part of its efforts to foster a healthy debate on development priorities within the region.
In their respective areas of focus, the Reports offered a wealth of far-reaching, relevant, and at-times-hard-hitting policy recommendations for governments, civil society and international partners.
In short, a new set of ideas had been introduced into the regional debate, a contribution toward a reform agenda that has potential to stimulate productive discussion in order to put the pursuit of Arab human development on track.
The first AHDR aimed to take stock of development challenges and opportunities throughout the Arab States, driven by the belief that an accurate diagnosis of a problem is an important part of the solution.
The report's independent team of researchers found that the Arab States had made substantial progress in human development over the preceding three decades.
Its frank and at time hard-hitting messages were not eagerly absorbed everywhere – in parts it looks through a critical lens and both Arab governments as well as international powers – but, all in all, the Report was broadly recognized as the best of its kind: An independent, Arab-owned research document showing to each and all the web of ambitions and frustrations that the Arab peoples encounter in their efforts to attain a higher level of human development.
Responding to demand for ongoing analysis, UNDP and partners in the region decided to sponsor three additional reports, each one exploring to greater depth, in turn, the three deficits identified by the first AHDR.
Despite the presence of significant human capital in the region, AHDR 2003 concluded that disabling constraints hamper the acquisition, diffusion and production of knowledge in Arab societies.
The enormous gap that separates today's reality and what many in the region hope for, the Report argued, is a source of widespread frustration and despair among Arabs about their countries' prospects for a peaceful transition to societies enjoying freedom and good governance.
"Their challenge is to create a viable mode of transition from a situation where liberty is curtailed and oppression the rule, to one of freedom and good governance that minimizes social upheaval and human costs, to the fullest extent possible."
In particular, the Report calls for the adoption of time-bound affirmative action, tailored to the specificities of each Arab society, in order to expand the participation of women in all fields of human activity.